


Severance

by zeldadestry



Category: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Genre: Triple Drabble, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-24
Updated: 2008-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:50:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie had worshiped him since then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Severance

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: implied non-con
> 
> written as an extra treat for BlackClaude in the 2008 yuletide fic exchange

When he met Charlie the kid could barely stand and sure as hell couldn’t sit down. There were worse things a posse could do to a man than hanging.

Ben let him rest in his own bed, curled up on his side like the boy he was and wasn’t, shaking like he had the fever.

Charlie had worshiped him since then.

He never had to lay down the law with Charlie. Charlie understood. Ben had saved him and Ben’s word was good as the Lord’s. Of course Charlie had nothing but a sneer and spit for Jesus Christ. Ben was his real King. There was a reason his gun was called the hand of god. He was the only god Charlie knew.

Charlie’s blue eyes never strayed far from his face. Ben could feel them on him all the time it seemed, day and night. His ever-loving, ever-longing apostle. Want something that much, it always turns to hate, eventually.

Rare but potent, Ben indulged him. He’d allow Charlie’s arm around him or a hand at his back. Ben knew what it was for Charlie and made sure Charlie understood his want was not returned. But it had been weakness, all the same, even more so. A man who lets another man so near him, and not for sex, who could be more lonely?

What kind of man believed he could control Charlie Prince? Ben hadn’t been able to do it, not in the end.

Looking at his life from the outside, one might have said that it was Charlie who knew him best. Charlie knew how to hurt him, shooting Dan down, shooting him in the back.

If Ben was a god, he was the god of the old Testament. And when Charlie did not obey, Charlie had to die. 


End file.
